Saturday, March 17, 2012

Handicapping the 2012 Presidential Election

I'm a bit late with this but, since the Republican contest is still going on as their primary voters are apparently deciding which one of their candidates would have the worst chance of winning the general election, here goes. Four years ago I based my prediction on the hair-dos (and hair-don'ts) of each of the 2008 presidential candidates. That worked out well, except for Mitt Romney's classic televangelist coiffe being bested by McCain's no-nonsense, grumpy old combover.

So this time I will tweak the forecasting algorithm and look a little deeper into the issues to try to predict how things should evolve through the course of this election cycle. With the Democratic side set, unlike the wide open race of 2008, we can focus on the Republican primary fight. It is an interesting battle, but it is even more rigged in favor of big money sponsors than four years ago, thanks to the obscene and treasonous behavior of five crooked court justices who decided that the system wasn't rigged enough. So Romney sponsor's will buy the nomination and the only mystery is whether the system is rigged enough for them to also buy the election.

If the economy continues to recover, the conventional wisdom is that President Obama will have an edge, but the real story will be how much Obama's Super Pacs can raise to fight off the bottomless pit of cash that any Republican nominee will have access to as long as the law of the land is set by the Felonious Five judicial whores of finance. This is the simple math that decides who governs the "land of the free". This is the "freedom and democracy" that our leaders' rhetoric calls for being spread across the world. This is the price we pay for disengaging from political discourse.

I hate America because that's how I was raised. My mother, my grandparents, Frank, Bill, Rev. Wright - everything I ever learned was based on a visceral hatred for America and American ideals. I see my role as effecting revenge for the sins of the white race, not just the sins of America, but the sins committed against all the nations who were oppressed by the white man's greed. I will punish and humble this nation, and reduce it to the stature it deserves. I will put the white man on his knees before me. I will crumble the withered parchment of his constitution in my hand, and write a New Law that will shape the world to my vision.

Actually, you appear to be "raised" by the right-wing echo chamber. Can you point out one thing President Obama has done that threatens the almighty profit motive? Larry Summers and Tim Geitner are socialists? You are in dire need of a reality check from the RNC/Fox News pablum you've been sucking down.

Of course Larry and Tim aren't socialists. They're just in it to get paid, and to hear how smart they are. I don't care about any of that Keynesian crap, I don't even care how the economy does. My concern is who has the money. And Fox doesn't get it either - they still think I'm a liberal! Let me make one thing clear, I don't play games. I'm not here to push the country a little to the left and then retire to a life of golf and speeches to the UN. I'm here change the world motherfuckers! When I'm done, this country will be like a big France, without the good food. The Muslim Brotherhood will rule from Morocco to Malaysia. The money train from the federal government to the unions and Wall street will etched into the constitution, guaranteeing a permanent electoral majority for the New Democratic party. One more Supreme Court Justice and even that speedbump is gone. I will own everything in your life. Where you live. How much money you make and how much you can keep. What you drive. What you eat. Whether you live or whether we pull the plug. The very words you are allowed to speak.

And no one can stop me, it's too late. I own this election too. As Uncle Joe used to say, "Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything".

"So Romney sponsor's will buy the nomination and the only mystery is whether the system is rigged enough for them to also buy the election."

And, to perfect our self-delusion, we insist that we live in a democracy, when in fact plutocrats rule.

"[B]ut the real story will be how much Obama's Super Pacs can raise to fight off the bottomless pit of cash that any Republican nominee will have access to...."

In the end, it will be the battle of the Super Pacs.

In the red corner we have weighing in at 1 billion dollars, our Republican challenger, and in the blue corner, weighing in at 500 million, the title holder, the Democrat.

As the Big Money interest fight it out in the political arena, the electorate cheer wildly for every punch landed, and for every punch thrown, but slipped.

Seemingly lost in the melee is that the purse goes to the winner--and not the American people--and the really big bucks to the fight promoters.

"This is the 'freedom and democracy' that our leaders' rhetoric calls for being spread across the world. This is the price we pay for disengaging from political discourse."

We need our own Tahrir Square, but even that's no guarantee of success, given the attacks we've seen against the 99%, and Occupy Wall Street Movements that brought scattered attention to our democratic deficiencies.

Unlike in the past, the media can be now be used--24-7--to shape the argument, to cast it as something it's not, to present it favorably, or ignore it altogether.

Too often, the media, from Clear Channel's Rush Limbaugh to Roger Ailes'-Rupert Murdock's Fox News, is the voice that carries the day at the polls--it, too, bought by the very people pumping money into Super Pacs, and for whom winning will mean megabucks, as congress and the then-seated president conspire further to rig the game, so that the Koch brothers of the world can grow billions richer at the expense of the environment, and what's in the best interest of Americans.

And that is the problem: We have surrendered our nation's governance to plutocrats, and kleptocrats--neither of which have the people's interest in mind.

Rather than calling for an end to the hijacking of our government by special interest, with vested interests, you fell into the trap that they cleverly set for you, the trap of thinking that the problem of corruption in government, and the purchase of politicians by wealthy financiers, are the sole failing of one party (the Democratic party), rather than both parties.

Unless we identify the threat to our democracy, regardless of party affiliation and allegiance, we'll never install those mechanisms that will return governance to the people, for the people.

BD...exactly! It is a trap that is concealed all too well by partisan rancor. Granted there are important differences between the parties on some social issue, but to a lesser extent economic and foreign policy decisions.

Why do both parties support free trade agreements, when they know full well they are a race to the bottom? Why did both parties bail out the big banks and refuse to enact any meaningful regulations, setting the table for future disasters? Why do 45,000 people die every year to protect insurance company profits? Where is this socialism the wingnuts see creeping into our government?

Why do both parties support free trade agreements, when they know full well they are a race to the bottom? Why did both parties bail out the big banks and refuse to enact any meaningful regulations, setting the table for future disasters?

Because our elites have betrayed us.

The complexity of modern society will always produce inequality among social classes. In the United States, equality is more of a legend than anything else. There is no equality between Jewish billionaire capitalists like George Soros and the White working class.

The question is not whether there will be a wealthy ruling class. That is always a given. The real question is whether the ruling class will have any sense of racial, ethnic, and cultural loyalty to the lower classes.

In a 'multicultural' society, there is no sense of cohesion. All groups are in competition, and any loyalties that are exhibitted are done so narrrowly within groups.

The old WASP elite displayed a sense of obligation to lower classes and maintained the idea of common culture. The melting pot ideal that allowed the culture to adapt to waves of immigration yet survive as a coherent entity. This elite was displaced in the 1960's by a new elite whose primary task since then as been the dismantling of the common culture and its replacement with a diverse, disunified mosaic of competing groups.

This new elite feels more loyalty to their counterparts in other countries than they do to the working people in their own country.

That's why they will sell the interests of their fellow citizens out in a heartbeat.

why do you mexican midgets refuse to support Zimmerman as he gets railroaded by blacks and white liberals? You were similarly silent after the Juneteenth murder of a Hispanic by a black racist ("this is out neighborhood") in Austin, TX. Snoop Dogg murdered a Mexican in broad daylight, yet he was acquitted and now is a darling of tv. Blacks commit a tidal wave of rape against Hispanic women, yet you are silent.

Yeah, yeah, I know the trite response... you learned by rote at the feet of wayne bennett.

But you are right about both parties being subservient to the rich and the corporations. Too bad that you're a punkboy for negroes.

I just came across this blog and thought, damn, this guy Ernesto is the kind of guy I'd like to mate with for life. I would like to grant him my gametes, so that we can create a new species of superhumans. Ernesto, let me know if you're down. The sooner, the better, and preferably in the blazing moonlight.